Solana’s Rapid Rise in Q1 2024: What’s Behind the Hype? First appeared on Coinpedia Fintech News
Solana became a subject of speculation in 2022 after the FTX collapse and SBF BFF drama, and its value has been falling since November 2021. Fast forward to 2024, and Solana’s ecosystem is breaking out of its old confines again as the overall cryptocurrency bull market gains momentum before Bitcoin. 2024 Half-Life Event!
So what is Solana? Solana is a high-speed blockchain that promotes smart contracts, DApps, and NFTs. Transactions on Solana’s network are very fast and cheap compared to networks like Ethereum. The native token of the Solana blockchain is SOL. Solana has approximately 192 million NFTs issued, making it the top NFT blockchain in 2024.
The proof-of-history consensus mechanism created by founder Anatoly Yakovenko allowed the Solana blockchain to reach a TPS of up to 65,000 transactions per second at a cost of only cents.
comparison analysis
- Solana Network will have the second largest number of active developers after Ethereum in 2023.
- The Ethereum ecosystem ranked as the second most popular blockchain space in 2024, accounting for 12.7% of investor interest.
- All Ethereum Layer 2 accounts for 11.9% of investor interest in the blockchain ecosystem.
- The Arbitrum and Base ecosystems emerged as the most popular ecosystems among Ethereum Layer 2, with chain-centric narratives accounting for 3.3% and 3.2% of investor interest.
Solana Overview
Solana’s architecture is built for speed and efficiency, leveraging unique consensus mechanisms called Proof of History and Proof of Stake to achieve high overall throughput. Solana Network supports a wide range of applications from DeFi to NFTs. It has become a popular choice for developers looking for scalability and users looking for a cheap and reliable transaction.
Let’s take a look at the current status and explosive growth of the Solana ecosystem in the first quarter of 2024.
- Solana experienced a major surge on March 18, 2024, surpassing $200 for the first time in two years and reaching its highest price since 2021.
- A notable increase in network transaction volume triggered the surge.
- Over the past 12 months, the price of SOL has increased by 700%.
- Layer 1 blockchains capture 49.3% of global cryptocurrency investor interest in the chain-specific space.
- On March 15, 2024, Solana (SOL) achieved a major turning point, surging 11%, pushing its market capitalization to an all-time high of $82.5 billion. The surge came despite a broader market downturn that recorded a 4% contraction.
- Much of Solana’s recent activity has been on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) such as Jupiter and Raydium. Traders have been actively accumulating memecoins such as Bonk and Slerf within these platforms. Additionally, Solana-based DEXes have been steadily gaining market share over Ethereum DEXes like Uniswap for nearly four months.
- Over the past week, Solana’s on-chain volume has increased significantly, and network fees collected have also increased significantly, reaching ATH levels.
- Recent data from DefiLlama shows a continued upward trend in Solana’s daily trading fees since early March 2024.
- On March 18, 2024, total transaction fees paid to Solana reached a milestone of $5.08 million.
| current price | $189.49 |
| market capitalization | $84.19 billion |
| share ratio | 65.37% |
| Expected reward rate APY when staking | 5.01% |
Solana-based tokens
The Solana ecosystem is thriving with new developments every day. Below is a list of the top Solana blockchain coins by market capitalization:
- Solana-based stablecoin
| name | price | market capitalization |
| rope | $1 | $778.66 million |
| USDC | $1 | 2.033 billion dollars |
| UXD | $0.99 | $7.46 million |
| die | $1 | $6,62,012 |
| parrot USD | $1.01 | $5.23 million |
- Solana based memecoin
Solana-based meme coins performed very well in the first quarter of 2024. These are like chips in the Solana ecosystem’s grand casino, where traders and investors participate in the markets in anticipation of the next virus wave.
| name | price | market capitalization |
| Dog We Fat | $2.94 | $3.09 billion |
| Bonk | $0.0000257 | 1.5 billion dollars |
| book of memes | $0.01232 | $708.37Mn |
| slough | $0.69 | $379,915,136 |
| popcat | $0.23 | $296,767,516 |
- Solana NFT
In the NFT world, Solana has an edge over Ethereum thanks to platforms like Solanart and Magic Eden that offer low fees and fast processing times.
Below is the list of Solana-based NFT collections for Q1 2024:
| name | price floor | Collection value |
| famous fox league | 6.28 Sol | 9.13 million dollars |
| Okay Bears | 5.25 Sol | 9.82 million dollars |
| SMB Gen2 | 39.50 soles | $36.93 million |
| Nyan Heroes | 2.39 Sol | $4.96 million |
| GGSG | 15.99 soles | $29.9 million |
Solana Ecosystem
Over the past 10 months, Solana has emerged as a company with commendable performance, with its price soaring tenfold. Resilience and survival in the dark cryptocurrency winter can be attributed to factors such as a vibrant developer community, a burgeoning Defi landscape, and a thriving NFT sector.
- In March 2024, Solana demonstrated exceptional resilience and efficiency, handling the Jupiter airdrop surge in network activity with remarkable calm.
- Even though some users experienced transaction delays, particularly delays in airdrop sales, the overall performance of the network was remarkable.
- Solana processed 1 billion DeFi transaction volume in just 3 hours and managed 2.5 million non-voting transactions in 2.5 hours. Transactions per second (TPS) temporarily dropped from 2,100 to 568, but the network quickly regained its footing, preventing any validator failures or transaction losses.
- This type of show, which some might consider a stress test, highlights Solana’s immobile architecture.
- Not only did the network continue to operate without interruption even under heavy load, but it also demonstrated its potential to revolutionize the blockchain space.
- Achieving 1 billion DeFi transaction volume in such a short period of time demonstrates Solana’s scalability and its active role in bridging the gap with traditional finance (TradFi).
- This event is an important milestone that shows that the cryptocurrency industry, led by Solana, is making steady progress in the first quarter of 2024.